1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an information processing system, a control method, and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
To utilize peripheral equipment of an image forming apparatus and the like from an information processing apparatus, it is generally necessary to load device drivers compatible with control commands unique to the peripheral devices into a processing system (hereinafter “OS”) that operates on the information processing apparatus. For example, in the case where the peripheral device is an image forming apparatus provided with a scanner, it is necessary to load a scanner driver into the OS.
In the case where the aforementioned image forming apparatus is utilized from an information processing apparatus, the scanner driver is activated from an application, settings required for scanning are established, the image forming apparatus is controlled with control commands unique to the image forming apparatus, and acquired image data is transferred to the application. By this means, the application can freely handle image data.
With respect to image forming apparatuses, there are cases where an authentication function unique to the image forming apparatus is enabled. An authentication function unique to an image forming apparatus is a function which requests input of authentication information when functions of the image forming apparatus are to be used, and which permits use of functions of the image forming apparatus only in the case where authentication is successful. Authentication processing is conducted using user information and a password controlled by a manager of the image forming apparatus. In the case where an authentication function unique to an image forming apparatus is enabled, a request is issued to a device driver to transmit authentication information (an authentication request is issued) upon receipt of a control command of a scan request from the device driver. Upon receiving the authentication request, the device driver transmits authentication information by a control command unique to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus conducts authentication processing using the received authentication information. When authentication is successful, the image forming apparatus performs scanning according to the control command. In image forming apparatuses in which an authentication function is enabled, scan requests from an information processing apparatus that cannot be authenticated are not executed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-177547 discloses an image reading apparatus which discriminates whether or not to perform reading based on a result of comparison of authentication information stored in a memory unit and authentication information transmitted from a transmission source of a reading execution instruction.
Among device drivers, there also exist drivers (general-purpose drivers) which do not use control commands that are unique to an image forming apparatus, but which use general-purpose control commands that are not dependent on an image forming apparatus. General-purpose drivers are in many cases pre-loaded into an OS. For example, a driver (WSD scan driver) compatible with the WSD (Web Service on Devices) scan protocol is loaded into the Windows® OS. A WSD scan driver conducts scanning by controlling the image forming apparatus using the WSD scan protocol. In such cases, if the image forming apparatus is compatible with the WSD scan protocol, scanning is possible even without loading a device driver unique to the image forming apparatus into the OS.
However, if scanning is conducted by controlling an image forming apparatus using a general-purpose driver of an information processing apparatus, there are cases where a general-purpose control command does not include an authentication function. Moreover, even if a general-purpose control command includes an authentication function, there are cases where it is not compatible with an authentication function unique to the image forming apparatus, and where it cannot conduct authentication processing with the image forming apparatus. In such cases, scanning cannot be conducted when an authentication function is enabled in the image forming apparatus.